The story continued to play out. Seeing Nero dodge the Doomsday Beast's claw strike and lightly land on the ground, everyone finally let out the breath they'd been holding.
Then, with just a few brief lines of dialogue, the group decided on their next battle plan. The game screen gave a close-up of the Doomsday Beast's roar, and in the next moment, the fight began.
"Boss battle is here. Sure enough, we really do have to fight the Doomsday Beast."
Siberian Duck looked at the game screen without any surprise, but soon she saw an assist gauge full of energy appear on the right side of the screen.
As soon as the battle screen appeared, it gave an assist prompt.
"Nero's fighting spirit is rising. Use the Sword Art 'Heavenshed One Ray' to weaken the Doomsday Beast."
"This battle has Nero assisting!" This kind of change made Siberian Duck pleasantly surprised.
Once she activated the assist, the game displayed a close-up.
A fierce wind rose, the scene shifted into a deep starry sky, the Doomsday Beast floating within this universe, and the next moment, a close-up of Nero appeared.
The white-haired boy held a sword edge formed by gathering wild wind, gently swung it downward, and the massive sword light fell onto the Doomsday Beast's body. As the sword light flashed, the screen split in half.
In the battle, the enemy targets, "Right Hand of Calamity," "Left Hand of Dawn," and "Antimatter Engine", all took wind-element damage and entered the "Drowning Dream" state.
Drowning Dream applied a one-turn 20% vulnerability debuff to the Doomsday Beast.
[Oh, Myfriend: Holy crap, what an awesome strike!]
[Even Comparing Power Is Fun: It feels so classy! Now this is a sword immortal!]
With Seele and Gepard already helping, and now Nero added to the assist lineup, Siberian Duck defeated the Doomsday Beast with ease.
After the battle ended, the story continued.
The group cooperated and successfully defeated the Doomsday Beast, but before they could celebrate, it launched a desperate counterattack.
"Holy crap, the Doomsday Beast's ultimate is kinda terrifying! In the cutscene it looks way scarier than in the battle!"
Siberian Duck commented honestly.
"Everyone's running away, eh? Nero just charged straight in! Holy crap, another jump-slash!"
[Herta Fan Support Club: Nero's body is splitting open, it looks so painful.]
[I Use Pantene: Sacrificing oneself for righteousness, reborn after facing death. Nero succeeded!]
[White-Haired Sword Immortal of the Xianzhou: Another jump-slash. Nero seems to really like jump-slashes.]
[Aha's Messenger: The fake sword immortal: flying with the sword, ten thousand swords returning to the sect, drifting gracefully, sharp swordsmanship, using the coolest moves for huge damage. The real sword immortal: desperate counterattack, always opening with a jump-slash, using simple, plain techniques, returning to basics, using the simplest move to deal the highest damage.]
"Nero succeeded, thank goodness! Everyone's running to catch him." Siberian Duck relaxed a bit, but before she could catch her breath, she saw the Doomsday Beast launch its final attack.
Seeing the antimatter stream sweeping toward Nero, she became furious and cursed, "Holy crap, is this Doomsday Beast a cockroach or what? You seriously won't die? How are you still alive?! Don't you dare touch my Nero you son of a *****!"
[Wind-Type Boy Solo Stan: Thank god, the main character rushed in and blocked the Doomsday Beast.]
[Mango~: Wow! So cool! What is that? An Aeon?]
[Chosen One: The main character's gone berserk! Someone come save him, where's Mr. Yang? Wait no, why is Nero charging in again??]
[Nero's Sword: Oh my god! Don't look, I'm here. This is way too reassuring!]
[Phantom: It's over… though it looks like both of them fainted.]
"March, quick, quick, quick! Good, they caught him! Mr. Yang, you're way too late!" Siberian Duck was swept up emotionally by the story, when suddenly she felt a bad premonition rising.
"No way… Nero isn't gonna get killed off, right?" she suddenly blurted out.
[Heart of Dan Heng: Streamer, do you even know what you're saying?]
[Mihoyo You Do All the Bad Things: Who hurt you like this?]
[Traveler, Is Star Rail Fun?: I told you to play fewer HoYo games! Now look at you, PTSD, huh?]
Seeing the suddenly cheerful barrage of comments, Siberian Duck pouted.
After the stream, she planned to edit together all the story scenes involving Nero. She'd even thought of the title already, [A Sun-Flavored Kid, the Little Sword Immortal From the Xianzhou.]
———
[In the Game]
Nero slept an extremely comfortable sleep, and the first thing he heard upon waking was the system's beautiful notification.
[Ding! The host's popularity is skyrocketing. The host's strength is increasing.]
[Ding! The host has gained over fifty thousand followers.]
[Achievement unlocked: Grains of Sand Make a Tower.]
[Ding! Rewarding the host with 200 Stellar Jade.]
[Rewarding skills: "Stars Twisted Dry, Heavenshed One Ray."]
[Ding! Once the host's popularity exceeds 150,000, the system will provide a sword.]
Waking up to so much good news, pretty great.
Nero felt he had become a lot stronger again, and his Stellar Jade had increased to seven hundred.
He had ridden a wave of spotlight in the earlier cutscene, and following up immediately by giving players some Stellar Jade was a good idea, this needed to be added to the schedule.
The newly obtained skill "Stars Twisted Dry, Heavenshed One Ray" had an introduction similar to the other skills the system had given him, only a few short lines.
A life is but a speck, existence but an instant, cast aside starlight to shine ten thousand rays.
He didn't really understand it, but if it sounded pretentious and classy, it probably meant it was a powerful move.
What he looked forward to the most was the sword he would get after surpassing 150,000 popularity. The one-time flying sword the system had given him earlier had let him experience the thrill of sword-flight, and he had immediately fallen in love with that feeling.
Although he could fly now with the power of "wind in his sleeves," flying on a sword was just different.
Riding a sword on the wind, slaying demons between heaven and earth, how cool was that?
After sorting through the new information in his head, Nero finally opened his eyes.
And immediately, he saw March 7th's face right in front of him.
The pretty girl's face was full of joy and excitement. "He's awake! He's awake! Nero woke up!"
Looking around, Dan Heng stood not far away. Noticing Nero's gaze, he nodded lightly.
Himeko, Mr. Yang, and Stelle weren't here.
Nero sat up and stretched his back with a long, satisfying motion.
"You scared me to death! Charging straight into the Stellaron's berserk energy field like that. Mr. Yang said it was fine, but Stelle woke up ages ago and you were still sleeping."
Sitting beside him, March 7th sounded a bit annoyed, then raised her hand and knocked on the Sun-Flavored Kid's head.
Dan Heng didn't speak, but he also nodded in agreement.
Nero raised his hand to rub the spot March 7th hit, let out two silly laughs, and asked, "Looks like you two are fine, and the space station isn't destroyed. How are Stelle and Sister Himeko?"
"You're in this state and you still have the energy to worry about others?"
Hearing her complaint, Nero just smiled without responding.
Of course he knew everyone was fine, this was for the players to see.
A character who sacrificed himself fainting, then waking up and not checking on others? That would be too strange.
Players might not see this exact sequence, but the later text entries and March and Dan Heng's reactions would tell them.
This was all a great chance to increase popularity from the side.
"No worries. Everyone's fine. The Legion threat is gone, the space station is safe now." Dan Heng's lips curved slightly, and he answered Nero's question in a gentle tone.
"Come on, let's celebrate you waking up, take a photo!"
Seeing Nero seemed fine physically and mentally, March 7th came close, took out her phone, and pulled him into a picture.
"Add me! I'll send it to you!"
Nero exchanged phone numbers with the lively girl, and then they heard footsteps approaching.
The three looked up and saw an exquisitely crafted doll, some kind of intricate, cute puppet dressed in high school-style clothing, walking over.
The craftsmanship was so detailed that even the facial expressions were naturally lifelike. If you didn't deliberately look at the joints, you might mistake it for a real person.
And most importantly, the doll's appearance looked seventy to eighty percent similar to Herta's portrait.
When she came near, the Herta puppet looked at Nero, and Herta's real voice spoke from inside.
Her voice was beautiful and matched her delicate appearance perfectly, but because of the indifferent, aloof tone, it wasn't as pleasant as her looks and voice suggested.
"Finally awake, you are guy who crashed into my space station."
═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═
[email protected]/AmbitiousTranslator
🥳Joining P@treon keeps me motivated and eager to work diligently, so please consider joining.🥰 You can access upto 20 advance chapter through P@treon.